On Wednesday, December 16, Mio’s Pre-K class had their holiday concert! They sang three songs – Hoy es Navidad (the Spanish version of Jingle Bells), I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, and the American Authors song Best Day Of My Life. Their whole performance was adorable!
Afterwards, we got to enjoy refreshments with Mio at her classroom party.
I bought Dan and I tickets to go see Lindsey Stirling at Wolf Trap for Father’s Day. We got to go on a rare dinner date without the girls, and had a fun evening watching one of our favorite violinists!
My best friend and I went to see Rachael Yamagata in concert at U Street Music Hall in DC on Sunday. This was my second time seeing her, but she sounds even more amazing live!
While many of her songs express the sadness and defeat of unrequited love and even sometimes anger, she ended the night with a beautiful rendition of Nat King Cole’s “I Wish You Love.” I caught the tail end of it in the video below. 🙂
I can’t believe it’s already October! The end of September just flew by, as the past few days have been pretty busy. On Thursday evening, we met up with my cousin’s husband Devin who was visiting from Arizona on business. It was his first time meeting Mio, and it was great catching up since the last time we saw him two years ago, and hearing about how my cousin Yuko and their kids were doing. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to see Yuko, Beni-chan and Sakura-chan soon! I’m sure Mio would love them, too.
Friday evening, my sister and I met up with friends in Silver Spring, Maryland, to watch the Japanese rock band B’z perform live in concert!
On Saturday, we drove down to Richmond to attend our friend Stephanie and Danny’s wedding! Before we left, we dropped Mio off with a family friend in the morning so they could watch her for much of the day. They have a daughter who is only 2 months older than Mio, so I heard that they played very well together while Dan and I were in Richmond!
What was supposed to be a two hour drive ended up taking longer due to a huge funeral procession that was on I-95, but we made it just in time for the ceremony, which was held at the beautiful Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in the heart of Richmond. (Apologies for the poor picture quality — I only had my phone with me to take pictures!)
The cocktail hour and reception were equally beautiful — the venue was lovely and all the food was so delicious!
Sunday was devoted to spending lots of quality time with Mio, as I hadn’t gotten to spend any time with her Friday evening and all of Saturday.
Tonight, I had the pleasure of seeing the beautiful, funny, and most incredibly talented Idina Menzel perform with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall!
I have been looking forward to this for a while now, since I have been a fan of Idina since her RENT days. She just has such a powerful stage presence and her voice is one of the most beautiful that I have ever heard. When I heard she was going to perform in San Francisco, I had to go. I dragged Dan along with me, and we were also joined by our lovely friends Sam, Uyen and Charissa! (Thanks for coming with us, ladies!) After a delicious dinner at Indigo, we headed over to Davies Symphony Hall for a truly memorable performance!
Idina sang a couple of her own songs that she has written and recorded, but also sang a number of her Broadway hits. She sang the RENT classic  No Day But Today beautifully, and it was breathtaking to hear her sing some of the Wicked songs she made so famous — I’m Not That Girl, For Good, and of course (my favorite!) Defying Gravity. She even slipped in a couple songs from the episodes she guest-starred in for Glee recently (Funny Girl and Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.) We were all in total awe of the Broadway powerhouse and uber-talented songstress that is Idina Menzel. It was one of the best live shows I have seen in a while, and I really hope that I can see her again sometime soon!
Some photos from the evening….
We weren’t allowed to take any photos or footage during the actual concert, so this was my way of getting a photo with my Broadway idol….
::UPDATE:: I found a video on YouTube of one of the biggest highlights of the concert. She sang “For Good” from the musical Wicked unmiked and a cappella after thanking all of us for coming to see her. It really felt like she was singing to us; it took my breath away.